Gingerbread Man-ing with A Dairy Allergy






Only three more sleeps until Santa, people! That means it's time to cram in as much caroling, Christmas movies and baking as we possibly can over the next few days.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that we spend Saturday afternoon in the emergency room after HDawg had an allergic reaction to (we think) a pecan. He has a severe dairy allergy and we already carry an EpiPen for that, but have never had to use it. Apparently the pecan did the trick, though (even though he regularly eats almonds, peanuts and cashews!), and we landed in the ER. Thankfully the nurses administered the EpiPen and this frantic momma did not have to... but it was altogether a traumatic event.

Needless to say, I'm hugging my little family a little tighter today, grateful that everyone is well and that HDawg has just about completely recovered from the reaction.

Because of his dairy (and now tree nut?! will certainly be taking him to his allergy doctor this week for a new full panel test!) allergy, we closely monitor and exclude a lot of prepackaged foods for our family. That makes Christmas parties no fun for him a lot of the time, so I wanted to create a special gingerbread man baking/decorating time for him to eat all of the dairy-free goodies he wanted.

I purchased this gingerbread mix and used Earth Balance vegan butter to make the recipe. I also whipped up a batch of dairy free buttercream frosting with a standard homemade buttercream frosting recipe by subbing in soy milk and Earth Balance. Delicious. I picked up all of the other fun, dairy-free, sugar-high cookie decor in the holiday baking aisle at Target. Tiny little gingerbread men and Christmas trees? Check.

HDawg was so excited in his little mismatched pajamas that he kept yelling out- "GINNNNNGERBREADDDD!" Thus, all the blurry photos : )

The Santa tray, tiny Christmas tree, ornaments and "Merry Christmas" banner are also from Target. Thanks to Target for partnering up with me to share some of their fun holiday products!

3 comments:

  1. He is so cute! Let me know if you would like me to put you in contact with my BFF who's toddler also has severe food allergies...I know it always helps to get recipe ideas, etc from others in the same situation. Her little guy wound in up in the ER with a severe reaction to what they later found out was oatmeal. They knew he had a dairy and egg allergy, and after a full panel it turned out he also has allergies to wheat, oats, soy and all legumes. She would be a great resource I'm sure as she has been struggling with the Christmas cookie situation this week too!

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  2. How terrifying!! I'm so glad that your son is making a full recovery. I think your private gingerbread party is brilliant. Looks like has had lots of fun!

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  3. Oh I missed that IG, so scary! I'm so happy to hear all is well now, but that would have definitely put me a panic attack, poor kiddo. I hope the allergy panel comes back with as results that are good as you can hope for. Merry Christmas!

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